


water bled out

by ironthoughts



Series: unmoved river [2]
Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Aleksander Markov, Bertram Green, Earl Popinjay, Gen, Julian Ford, Piecemeal, Valentino Altieri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-26
Updated: 2015-01-10
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:26:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ironthoughts/pseuds/ironthoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But I fear these may be the last days of the Whalers," writes Thomas. "Perhaps the last days of Daud." </p><p>Brigmore Manor waits upriver, and the Whalers have a long way to go. General spoilers for the first two-thirds of the Brigmore Witches; warnings for torture and general horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. gaze

The witches in the square can’t be more than nineteen.

"Have to say I’m impressed," Julian mutters. "Didn’t think she’d actually do it."

The two women are on their backs with their hands folded over their chests, fragments of bone charms crammed into their mouths and stacks of coin lined up between them. Their throats are slit to the bone, but the bodies are utterly spotless; there isn’t even a drop of blood on the cobblestones.

Somewhere in the Estate District tonight, two doors will open onto two blood pools and the words  _we walk amongst you_ cut into the floor, and several of the Whalers’ turned informants will find their bribes mysteriously vanished. 

Julian predicts Thomas will have an easier time finding a way into Coldridge prison after today. 

"Was this really necessary?" Beside him, Bertram seems to have reached a different conclusion. "I realize there’s sending a message, but—"

"Butchers," says a nearby woman primly; a crowd’s gathered around the corpses despite the watchmen’s best efforts to keep them back. "The work of butchers. This is the sort of thing you expect in Draper’s Ward, not a place like  _this—_ ”

"Sure," says Julian, and pushes Bertram to a different part of the crowd. His scowl and eyepatch grant them a wide berth; with Bertram in a suit and him in similar but darker clothes, they look like a nobleman and his particularly irritated bodyguard. Now closer to the bodies, it should be easier for them to do their job—find the witch sent to investigate, and tail her back to her sisters or hideout.

Julian reaches up as if to scratch his right eyebrow and closes his eye, letting dark vision take over. Ever since his left eye was torn out in a scrape with the Dead Eels, he’s seen in dark vision on the left side permanently, rendering his normal right vision a hopeless distraction. In the first year he’d seriously considered blinding himself entirely until Popinjay pointed out (with a smile, damn him) that they could then dress him in whatever colors they wanted.

"No informant yet," Julian murmurs, still covering his closed eye with his hand. All the lines of sight he sees are the usual stares of vaguely embarrassed bystanders. "We might be here a while."

Bertram shifts, scanning the crowd. “Only if the Overseers don’t show up first.”

"They probably won’t come at all. This whole district’s bought its way out of Abbey supervision."

"I doubt money could get them to ignore a display like this."

 _Display._ Julian sighs. “If I knew this was going to bother you so much I’d have asked for someone else.”

"I do my job," says Bertram quietly. "It doesn’t mean I like it."

"Please. Don’t act like you’re the one who did this."

Bertram sighs and grips the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t bother you at all?”

"Why should it?" Julian snaps, keeping his voice down with difficulty. "Because some of our own are this age? Because one of our own did this?"

He knows Bertram’s answer is  _yes,_ and takes perverse pleasure in watching him struggle for another answer. “We used to do things differently. We used to make things  _clean._ ”

"Well things are different now, aren’t they?"

Bertram ignores the jibe. “Did you hear what Aleksander had to say when he got back? The ones he fought, two of them barely knew how to hold a blade. One of them just about transversed into his shot.”

"All the better for us then."

"Julian," says Bertram, exasperated. "You can’t even call this a fight. She’s sending  _civilians_  at us.”

The same conscience that drove Bertram to leave the Abbey will get him killed as a Whaler, Julian is sure. ”They knew the consequences when they bribed our informants. Don’t act like they were told this was safe.”

"I doubt they were told they might actually die either. Or that they might die like this."

Julian scoffs, drawing a disgusted look from a young nobleman. “Like anyone is dumb enough to think being a witch might end well.”

"No," says Bertram with incredible patience, "but they might be young enough to."

"Youth doesn’t excuse anything."

"Really?" Bertram looks around as if weary of the bodies before him, but actually scanning the crowd for possible spies. "I wouldn’t complain about how our younger friends disrespect you then, Julian Ford. It seems to me they merely return the favor."

Julian scowls. The edges of his eyepatch dig into his brow. “They join us to  _work,_ not to be coddled. The conditions of our employment are clear.”

"That’s exactly what I’m trying to get at. Every one of us was told what it meant to put on the uniform. Does Delilah strike you as doing the same?"

There’s nothing he can say to that. He only heard the woman speak all of three sentences, but he got the general impression she was far from a professional employer. Still, he doubted her witches could be so clueless about the dangers of their work. Julian himself came to Daud as a mercenary, no stranger to the consequences of being caught by the Watch. The added danger from the Abbey wasn’t particularly bothersome either, though the fact of the suicide pin still bothers him now.

Aeolos had used the pin when the Overseers questioned him. Not that Julian saw—nobody saw—but Bertram had seen the body when the Overseers threw it before him and Shakesheave, and they’d all seen what had been done when it came time for the last rites. Like a mangled doll, Julian had thought. Thomas hadn’t taken it well; Aeolos was the one who first brought him in and trained him, a long time ago.

And Shakesheave died helping Bertram escape. So many of them died that way, helping their own. Valenti would have too, if Bartleby hadn’t stepped in. 

That had been a shock, Valenti buying time for him. He wouldn’t have done the same. 

Julian wonders if he should be ashamed of it. 

"I see her," says Bertram quietly, interrupting his thoughts. "By the manservant on your left. Blonde hair, blue jacket, white blouse; she’s scoping the crowd."

Julian nods but doesn’t look up. He watches a line of sight sweep the street and swivel away, follows it to the slim yellow silhouette of a woman near the edge of the throng. After a moment she turns and begins walking; as if on cue, another shadow detaches itself from the roof of the opposite cigar shop and follows, blinking across the rooftops in stealthy pursuit.

Valenti.

"We’ve got eyes," says Julian. "Let’s go."


	2. tongue

“Oh dear,” says Popinjay, when they arrive on the rooftops. “It seems the Eels may have gotten him first.”

Rinaldo glances down the body-strewn street and scowls. They’d tracked one of Delilah’s informants to a particular squad of Hatters, and that squad to this section of Draper’s Ward; and now that squad is lying dead and bloody, their insides strewn about from gaff hook slashes.

“I suppose you have a plan for finding him in this mess,” says Rinaldo, as they blink down into the street. “Even if the man is dead his possessions might yield something useful.”

“Why Professor Mazza, I thought you’d never ask.” Popinjay strides out over the bodies and tugs up his mask to free his mouth. “Hello? Is anyone here still alive? I’m a doctor!”

A pained groan answers him a few seconds later. Popinjay tips his head, then pivots on his heels to give Rinaldo a deeply chilling grin.

“Tad _aaaaa_.”

Rinaldo bites back a shudder and follows him to the wounded Hatter. The man’s sprawled face-down behind a pile of crates like he crawled there, sliced open across the chest and abdomen. He blinks up at them and moans when Popinjay rolls him over.

“Aww  _Void_. Fuckin’. The h-hell you lot here for. New crutches?” He manages a half-sneer at Rinaldo.

“For you, perhaps,” says Rinaldo coldly, and rams the Hatter’s right knee into the ground hard enough with his crutch to make him shriek. “I remind you that I am not the one bleeding out in his own territory.”

“A few weeks ago that was us,” adds Popinjay. He starts to pat the man’s face, palm quashing his nose. “My colleague there lost his squad and the temporary use of both ankles, though I think you probably know something about that. Mm?” His hand drifts to the delicate flower brooch pinned to the Hatter’s collar. “I think someone _you_ know likes to _gloat._ ”

The Hatter pales. “P-Piss off,” he croaks. “I got nuthin’ to say.”

“I think you have plenty to say,” says Popinjay, fingers drumming down the man’s torso, beating dangerously close to his open wounds. “Because you’re _smart._ And we’re all _smart,_ here. Daud doesn’t just hire assassins, you know. Some of us—” his head tips to Rinaldo “—are learned men. Some of us—” His fingertips hook into the Hatter’s abdominal gash and curl. “—are surgeons.”

The Hatter’s jaw clenches. His nostrils flare as he starts to hyperventilate. Rinaldo plants one crutch on the man’s chest to keep him from struggling, and Popinjay continues to peel the gash open, unhurried and jovial, tugging happily away with each flex of his fingers.

“That’s not to say—” tug “—we don’t take marks, of course.” Pull. “We do.” Pinch. “Sometimes.” Twist. “Usually, though, we keep people alive.” Long clean rip of skin. “We keep them alive for as long as we like.”

“She meets her friends in the market square,” the man screams. His face is gray, his lip bloody. “She knows the dye merchant at the south end and the dockhands by the west port I don’t know who else there is stop it stop it stop stop stop stop for the love of the Void—”

“Shh shh shh calm down, son, calm down, there’s no need to rush like that…”

Rinaldo says nothing as Popinjay pats the man’s face bloody and continues his questions. The dye merchant is another one of Daud’s regular informants; it seems as though their network is more compromised than they thought. How did Delilah sink her claws so deep? How did none of them catch it?

Pointless to ask, of course. The answer will always be Billie. Rinaldo considers himself a straightforward man; he determines the most sensible solutions to complex problems. Whether they are moral debates or organic syntheses is topical.

For example, it is like this: without Billie, he would still be walking.

It is like this: without Billie, Leandros would still be walking. Nathan would still be walking. Pavel would have mastered transversals. Morris would have seen Tyvia one day.

It is like this: the sensible thing would have been to die with them.

Rinaldo takes a steadying breath and grips his crutches. Come now, he is not new to loss or grief; he can survive this, he can survive them. He can endure. He can continue. He can live this pain twice.

“Thank you, my man,” Popinjay is saying with genuine sincerity. “You have been very helpful.”

“That’s it?” the Hatter rasps. His voice is raw. “No threats then? No gloating?”

Popinjay jerks back, affronted, as he checks his wristbow. “Oh nono. _Never._ Professional courtesy, you know.”

Then he shoots him through the temple. The bolt punches straight through the man's skull and buries itself in the wall past them. Popinjay tethers it back.

“Well, that wasn’t entirely a loss. At the very least we know there is more cleaning to do.” He notices Rinaldo’s stillness and tips his head. “Are you well, Professor?”

“As well as I can be.” To change the subject: “I’m surprised you didn’t show him the pin.”

Popinjay pulls out the pin in question, a flower brooch matching the one in the Hatter’s collar. “No, if he’d known we’d killed her already he would not have had the hope we would leave her be. Needless cruelty, as they say.” He plucks the Hatter’s brooch free, pins it to his lapel, and adds the second one just beneath it. “We have a dye merchant and four dockhands to visit. Are your crutches steady?”  
  
Rinaldo ignores the question. “Rulfio’s scouts run recon here tomorrow. We’ll need to finish our work today.”

“I wouldn’t mind if we took their work for them. Give them some long-overdue rest. That is, of course, if you are amenable to it.”

With two broken ankles, Rinaldo shouldn’t even be on active duty, much less taking additional assignments. But they’re short on men and short on time (why? Why time? What is happening that fuels Daud with such urgency?), and everyone is pulling twice their weight.  
  
“We’ve removed the last witch in this part of the ward. Recon won’t be an issue for me.”

Popinjay’s smile is audible through the mask as they blink back up to the rooftops. “Good. Now, if we’re efficient, we can have everything done in time to spend a few hours dallying on the rooftops.”

Rinaldo might not know Popinjay, but he knows the man doesn’t _dally._ He spends every moment bent towards one goal or another, cutting secrets out of unfortunate men or pursuing the answer to some physiological curiosity. “I suppose you’ve taken up sight-seeing in your oncoming age then.”

A laugh. A twinkle of lenses. “After a fashion. As you said, we killed the last witch. Only Hatters and Eels left in this part of the ward now.” Popinjay straightens his lapel and pats the pins there like a treasured gift from a lover. “Time to see who fights hardest for it.”


	3. hands

“No,” Bertram is saying when Thomas walks into the kitchen. “No, I will not. Absolutely not.”

“She has five targets, Bertram, it’s standard procedure,” says Aleksander, apparently at the end of his patience. “And sending her alone is out of the question. Our contacts are still compromised and any of those marks could be a trap—”

“Then send someone else.” Bertram crosses his arms, jaw tight. “I used to preach in that neighborhood. The kids there were good kids. If it turns out we have to kill five kids I knew and then turn their bodies into a warning _display_ —”

“That’s enough,” says Thomas behind them. Both men jump. “You were assigned with her because your skills best suit you to the task. Do not compromise our standards with personal matters. We no longer have the manpower to afford them.”

Bertram flushes and nods. “Yes sir. Understood.”

Thomas holds his gaze for another deliberate beat before looking to Aleksander. Evidently they are a bad fit; the death toll from the surge had forced Thomas to rearrange most of the teams, raising conflicts the original roster had avoided. At least Bertram is one of the more even-keeled Whalers. Even if he takes issue with Piece’s assignment, he’s not foolish enough to sabotage her for it.

“Where are Rulfio and Piece?”

“Piece took Rulfio to the infirmary. The witches hit him with something we thought was chokedust, but he only got worse by the time we got back.” Aleksander shifts uneasily from foot to foot at the unasked question and says, “The last I saw, it wasn’t life-threatening, but…”

Thomas’ heart sinks. They can’t afford to lose any more people, especially not their team leads. “What did you find at the chapel?”

Bertram tugs a bundle of papers from his coat and hands it to Thomas: ledger notes, maps, lists of names. “They're breaking into kennels and beheading hounds, then shipping the skulls upriver. It looks like they’ve been doing this for a while, but most of their hounds before came from people they paid off, or who bought their charms. As far as we can tell, the skulls are being sent directly to Brigmore manor.”

The words bring a calm chill to his stomach. Brigmore manor. Upriver will be the end between them and Delilah’s witches, one way or another.

“We didn’t find anything that could tell us what they need the skulls for,” says Aleksander, a thread of worry in his voice. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Thomas blinks out of his reverie and tucks the papers into his coat. “Little information is better than none. I’ll see this to Daud. What is our progress in the city?”

“We caught one group off-guard near Clavering and led another into an ambush. Hatter’s Row is clear of spies, and we’re still waiting to hear back from the waterfront. But our informants aren’t pushing us for additional payment anymore, so I’m guessing it’s safe to say we’re the worst things in the dark again.” Aleksander loosens a crick in his neck and winces. “As it should be.”

“Good. And Piece?”

Bertram straightens in his uniform, drawing up into a stiff line. “She took every name on your list. Tamara didn’t go as planned, but Piece ensured her body was pulled up by the rivermen.” Distaste flickers across his face. “I hope that suffices.”

“It will do.” Thomas considers reminding Bertram to be respectful when he and Piece go on their mission later, but decides against it. “Dismissed.”

The two Whalers bow and blink out of the room, and Thomas slumps at the table with a heavy sigh. Bertram will need to be moved to another team, a team tasked with less questionable work. Short-handed as they are, intimidation and extortion are no longer tasks delegated to a numbered few, but if he re-writes the roster entirely…

Yes. Yes, it could be done.

Thomas drags himself out of his seat, finds only cold coffee at the counter and dumps it into a mug anyway, dregs and all. The stuff tastes awful and feels even worse once he swallows, but it wakes him up, and that’s all he’s asking for at this point.

It is an ugly time to be a Whaler. Thomas can’t remember the dissent ever being higher. Most of it can’t be helped, he knows, but some things…some things…

Daud allows no secrets from his men, but he’s kept plenty from them over the years. Not even the senior Whalers knew the full scope of their work. Each team operated separately, uninformed of the others’ tasks; besides the handful personally assigned to the Empress’ assassination, no one else even knew Daud had been involved until days after the fact. 

(Thomas still remembers how some of the men reacted when they found out. How some said that Daud overstepped himself. How a very few said that he’d collapsed the Empire. How Billie cowed them all with a glare that _wanted_ their blood, and how Daud had spoken with a terrible calmness: no one said you had to stay.)

There was security in the measure, of course. Should a team be captured it would be impossible for it to compromise any of the others. But there was another angle to it too—it kept them selectively blind. They were—still are—a large group, and members rarely mingle outside of their assigned squads and shifts. Recon scouts tortured and murdered in the course of their work, shuttled from job to job; each individual or team alone received their names of their targets, and anyone who might object was largely none the wiser.

With the roster changed and their numbers cut, it was inevitable some things would come to light. Bertram’s issues with the extent of Daud’s extortion tactics are hardly the worst of it. Thomas doubts the men would take it well if they knew who, and how many, were told to kill their own. How many accidents were actually executions, how many suicide missions death sentences.

Thomas has carried out the orders himself, though he doesn’t know who else has; only Daud is privy to that information, and those who have been assigned such things know better than to speak of it. As far as Thomas is concerned, no one has required a _correction_ since the surge—it hasn’t been necessary, for a long time now—but with the way things are…

He hopes Daud won’t give the order again. There aren’t enough of them left. Not to hold Rudshore and fight Brigmore. Not to fight the Abbey while the other gangs smell blood. Delilah did well to flaunt their weakness. Whatever her plans, she bought herself all the time she needed.

Thomas slumps at the table and puts his head in his hands. He is capable of keeping the Whalers together. He is capable of keeping them at Daud’s side. Daud chose him as his second, for this specific task, and his faith in Daud’s judgment is absolute. Even if half of them are going into their fourth missions without rest. Even if half of them are going into their second day without sleep. Thomas himself hasn’t slept in the last three days, hasn’t washed within working memory. His clothes still reek of sewer filth from when he handed the maps off to Daud in Hatter’s Row.

He is at peace with Daud’s decisions, but he knows.

They can’t keep this up. They can’t.


End file.
